Title

Authors

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

8-2012

Abstract

“Each of you – the 154 who make up the Class of 2015 – has a unique story.”

“You are a singularly smart group: of the 475,660 test takers nationally, your class LSAT median is 162 - in the top 14% of these test takers. Your median GPA is 3.50. The top quarter of your class has a score of 163 (the top 12% of test takers nationwide and UGPA of 3.60; the bottom quartile of your class is in the top 25% of these test takers at 158. Among your classmates are those who speak a total of 15 foreign languages: French, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Gaelic, German, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Korean, Urdu, Punjabi, Chinese, Mandarin, and Arabic.”

“You have lived abroad, and almost every one of you has had fascinating internships many of which were in law firms. You come from privileged backgrounds and from poverty. One of you wrote, “I spent 9 years and lived in 15 homes before I found a place to call home. Life was a lottery. At one house my sister and I weren’t allowed to eat at the dinner table with the ‘real family’ ”; another spent the last 17 years serving as a single parent to a child whose mother simply walked away, supporting him as a taxicab operator. Another of you learned from her mother: “if you curse at the cookies you’re baking in antique Sicilian, they taste better.” Yet another wrote, “My experiences as an infantry officer securing the freedom and liberty of others profoundly influenced my decision to pursue a degree in law.” One of you who comes from a country which does not honor its citizens freedom as does our own wrote, “ I find my work similar to Sisyphean labor; indeed my knowledge, my experience and effort do not have much value, and what is appreciated here is corrupt connections which I will never accept.” I am looking forward to meeting the engineers in your class – a biomedical engineer, 2 electrical engineers, two ocean engineers (one male and one female) and an oil field engineer. Two of your classmates graduated from the Naval Academy including a woman who, along with being deployed to Iraq was entrusted with the safe navigation of a multimillion dollar warship.”